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Bellum omnium contra omnes

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Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.

In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well oiled in the closet, but unused.

I have to tell you that I am watching the elections with only lukewarm interest. Sue Lowden looks like she will lose, at least that is what polling looks like. The kid, Nikki Haley won’t reach the 50% barrier to avoid a runoff for the republican spot on the ticket for the Governorship of South Carolina. The tea party is 1 for 2 in New Jersey, with a win in the third district and a loss in the 7th.

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The kid Strasburg from the Nats looked pretty damn good in beating down the Pirates today. 14 k’s is impressive, regardless of what team the kid pitched against. Let’s see what happens when the kid faces Albert (ROIDS) Pujols, or Matt Kemp or Ryan Braun. Good start tho, kid, don’t let it go to your head!

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I wonder if the tea party patriots understand what they are really going to get for when they vote for these ultra conservatives. The people they vote for will be walking into the lions den, and they will be just as affected by lobbyists and monied interests as the people they may well be replacing. The problems in Washington come as much, if not more from lobbyists and corporate influence of congressmen as corrupt congressmen and women. Without fixing THAT money issue, the tea party will find that the people they vote into office will be just as liable to the influence of money as their predecessors. President Obama, who ran for President and won on fixing that, has been unable to. If he can’t do it, what makes you think you can?

Have a nice day!

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Ending today’s article with the Viddy of the day, from youtube via Fora.tv; Nouriel Roubini talking about accountability on Wall Street.

G’night America

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I am so proud. I am a big fan of Rachel Maddow. She is just a good kid, whip smart, fun, brash in all the right places and she is a strong media voice on the left to at least equal, if not surpass the MSM voices on the right. So why am I proud? My girl Rachel went into the lions den. To CPAC. The last two days of the Rachel Maddow show has had snippets of her there, from the visit she made to the John Birch society booth, to giving an autograph to a fan, on, of all things, a magazine cover with Sarah Palin on it.

RACHEL! TOSS ME SOME OF THAT CPAC SWAG! I can’t make it down there! PLEEZEZ???? I’m just a liberal who wants some politiswag! If they would only hold major political type events of that nature here on Staten Island. Ah well! 🙂 This viddy is from yesterday. Dig the super huge pic of Sarah Palin. lulz!

The birchers sounded slightly insane, claiming that water fluoridation was meant to keep the population down, or something weirdness like that. She claims that only one person was nasty to her, some guy who was apparently vociferously anti-gay, who yelled at her, and handed her something.

They are selling a book titled “The Tyranny of Liberalism”! Love the fact that people who are accepting of everything except..I dunno, TYRANNY could somehow be tyrannical. I dig that title because of that, I may look that one up, just for the giggle factor. The consumers guide to the apocalypse sounds all touchy feely and filled with love. I wonder if there are any 20% discounts for the Armageddonist on the cheap…

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If the average person paid as much attention to politics that they paid attention to sports, the world would be a much better place. Watch a Fantasy baseball viddy. This guy is a putz BTW. Just watch and giggle.

Fantasy sports. I used to live on the stuff. I can remember the times when I would have over 20 teams going at one time, and I used to win fairly often as well. I don’t hit the fantasy sports quite as hard as I used to, but I think I’m still pretty good at it. I have a fantasy hockey team on Yahoo! that uses the same settings as the public leagues, and that team, if it listed as a public league would be in the top 25 overall out of hundreds of thousands of teams. Sidney Crosby + Ryan Miller + Patrick Marleau + Marian Gaborik + Martin Brodeur = First place from day one.

I put together a draft list that I thought was pretty good for a yahoo fantasy baseball league that autodrafted today. It is the first draft that tells me how I am doing with general player placement as far as drafting goes.

I did pretty well, except in one area, starting pitching, where I f*cked up something fierce. I have to say that I think I really did well besides that though, seeing how I drafted in the 12th spot, last, a far from ideal place to draft from. OK, I did end up with 2 WTF players on my roster, and one guy I am unhappy with on offense who is in a key position. The list that follows is in the order they came to me in:

If there is anything to learn from this, it is this: Rank starting pitchers higher next time. I ranked Lincecum 8th and Halladay 11th, and didn’t rank another pitcher until I ranked Zack Grienke, CC Sabathia, Chris Carpenter, and Felix Hernandez 27th through 30th. The next starter after that? Dan Haren at 55th. Justin Verlander, Adam Wainwright, Yovani Gallardo, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Wandy Rodriguez all ranked FAR too low.

Lesson learned. I put Iwamura and Barmes on the Waiver wire, I’m hoping to pick up Joel Pineiro and Scott Feldman. Kinda Surprised that Pineiro didn’t get drafted, even if he is a projected #5 starter with the Angels. Already got an offer for one of my 6 closers, and I’m sure to get more. The offer? Josh Beckett for Mariano Rivera. I said no. With the closers I have, I’m sure I’ll get more and better offers, along with a few stupid ones. I think I can get more for Mariano than Beckett. I’d be surprised if I couldn’t get a Matt Cain or a Josh Johnson if I’m being offered starting pitching, or maybe Youkilis or Figgins to help me at 3rd base. Should be fun!

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That’s it from here. Later!

Today’s nuggets, via wikiquote: I’ll never forget September 6, 1950. I got a letter threatening me, Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra and Johnny Mize. It said if I showed up in uniform against the Red Sox I’d be shot. I turned the letter over to the FBI and told my manager Casey Stengel about it. You know what Casey did? He gave me a different uniform and gave mine to Billy Martin. Can you imagine that! Guess Casey thought it’d be better if Billy got shot. Phil Rizzuto

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. Dale Carnegie

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Today was a good day. My wife and I went to the Canyon of Heroes today and saw the Yankees championship parade. It was… fun is the wrong word, but it was enjoyable, mostly. Good stuff first. And there is a first today, all the pics and viddys (with one exception, and you’ll be able to tell which one that is) were shot…. by me. 🙂

First Viddy is of the float that had Mariano Rivera on it. All viddy’s shot just before the very end of the parade, just before the Tweed building on Chambers Street.

It was chilly, not cold, but chilly. It was windy. It was crowded.(duh) There were no spots up front to be had for any of the late comers, like

The rhino shows some pinstripe pride

my wife and I, but we got as close as possible, I got a lot of these shots after fighting for that spot for a good long time, had to be 45 minutes, maybe longer. People moved over, we moved up. You can see we were still several rows off of the front after even that time from the next viddy.

There were a lot of people there, as many as 1,000,000, hence the blog title. That million is a number that I have heard bandied about on nj.com, among other sites. I dunno about that, I never got a glimpse of the entire crowd, being in it at the time. Michael Kay said he thought the crowd didn’t look as large this year as some of the 90’s parades. I can’t speak to that, I never went to those parades, but it was absolutely a huge amount of people. And there may not have been as many people as at some of those 90’s parades, but we more than made up for in heart and love for our favorite team, the New York Yankees.

And yes, that ugly goofy looking monkey holding the pennant there is me, your beerless leader, Das Rhino. Pic taken by my wife.

Aside from the story at the end of this paragraph, there was a lot of fun had. Pictures taken, over 100 of them, some very bad ones, a few good ones which my wife cropped on her laptop, Like the one at the very top of this blog. Had to splice out the legs that were on either side of that shot. And don’t worry about hiding the kids, Carrie PreJean was nowhere around, they belonged to two separate people on either side of me. 🙂

Now to the bad stuff, which happened early on, before and just as the parade was beginning.

The spot where the crush happened

It would be better if next time there are signs up telling people where to go. Despite everyone knowing where the canyon of heroes is, there were thousands of people who were simply in the wrong place when the parade went off, and there were a thousands of people who were a few blocks north of the turnoff at Chambers and Broadway. I got caught there because of all the streets being cut off and having no way to get there but going north of the parade route and coming back. Cops were only minimally helpful.

My wife and I got caught in a crush just above the corner of Broadway and Chambers street at around 11:20. It was all of 30 feet off of that corner where the serious part of the crush happened. It scared the hell out of my wife, and rightfully so. She had someones elbow in one ear and another in her neck. She was being pushed from in front and behind and one side. I was on the other and fought to get her some room. I did what I could, but it wasn’t enough to keep my wife, who has asthma, and was having some trouble breathing as it was, from panicking.

She is fine, but she got squished like a bug there for a few minutes, and there was real danger there, and she is as sore as hell now from the crush. That danger was due to scaffolding which cut down the size of the sidewalk, and the crush of people in that confined space made a hard push to get to actually see the parade more difficult.

That’s about it, except a final viddy, again from today’s festivities, this shot at Foley Square, where there was a screen showing the ceremonies a few blocks from city hall, Couldn’t get close enough to see it in person. The crowd there was pretty large, but the sound system wasn’t loud enough. I could barely hear it, though the sound does kinda come through here. And the high pitched monkey scream that you hear in all the Viddys? Ya…that’s me. I sound like a f***** monkey. Maybe I should change the name of this blog to Mike The Monkey. LOL.

Today’s Nuggets, Via Wikiquote: There are surprisingly few real students of the game in baseball; partly because everybody, my eighty-three year old grandmother included, thinks they learned all there was to know about it at puberty. Baseball is very beguiling that way. Alvin Dark

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. George Bernard Shaw

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. Stephen King

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Game over, World Series Over, Yankees Win ThEeEEeEeEeeEeEeEeEeEEeEe Yankees Win! On the arm of Andy Pettitte and the Bat of MVP Hideki Matsui did the Yankees defeat the Philadelhia Phillies here in game six in convincing fashion 7-3. It was never in doubt. Ever.

I’m hanging out watching the post game on Fox, I suggest you do the Same. I’ll drop a real blog on you later. I’m busy enjoying the moment!

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Couldn’t find any viddy’s on tonight’s Yankee game, so here’s some joy from the late great George Carlin, on the differences between Baseball and Football. Classic stuff.

Yankees Lose. ThEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Yankees Lose! I said this World Series was going to go 6, but I never thought I’d be unhappy about it before now. A.J. Burnett Sucked out loud today, and to be honest, I really couldn’t watch after those first two innings. I say that to you, and you have to understand that I didn’t watch the first two innings because I was busy running around and missed it. I think I actually watched about ten pitches the whole night. Usually when I watched It was a mess. Someone on Philly would get a hit, or if the Yankees were batting they f***** up. The clearest example of this was in the 9th inning. Jeter at the dish. I turn around to see what’s happening, and lo! and behold!, he grounds into a double play. Turn it off for a minute, Damon singles, turn the game on with Teixeira up, he strikes out to end the game.

At least the Yankees, who were out of this game early, came back and made a game of it. The hitting picked up some in the eighth and ninth, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the horrendous start by Burnett, the Yankees only gave up 3 runs after he was pulled.

My wife wants him cut from the rosterbut i tell you I wouldn’t go that far. The Yankees wouldn’t be in the world series without him, and he has pitched some good games for us including a gem in game two. Yankees fans are going to have to wait and see what happens when Pedro goes up against Andy Pettitte on three days rest on Wednesday, though. Should be an interesting matchup.

Election news you may not be up on. There are two ballot initiatives here in New York.

B.I. 1 is an offer of a land trade between New York State and National Grid. National grid will give up 10 acres of land in one portion of Saint Lawrence county for the use of 6 acres in another portion, so National Grid can build power lines to update the grid in that area. The ten acres must be agreed upon by the state as being at least equal in value to the land being given up before N.G. gets the land. If you are interested you can read about it in the actual Board of elections certification for both ballot initatives here.

If we get more land then we give up, and the people of the state get a better grid, who am I to quarrel. I will vote yes on New York Prop 1.

B.I. 2 is an attempt by the state to give prisoners the capacity to voluntarily do work for non profit organizations. Right now state and local inmates may not work for anyone but the state “and it’s political divisions and public institutions” as mandated by the state constitution , this B.I. would simply expand the work the inmates do to include non profit organizations.

There is no reason that I see at all to vote against this measure. It is meant to expand the amount of work we get out of state and local prisoners. Not a damn thing wrong with that. I will also vote yes on New York Prop 2.

As for the mayoral race, I will be voting for Bill Thompson. Bloomberg isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but his term is up, his time is to have expired, and he is only here by virtue of him going out of his way to alter the city charter so he could grab a third term outside the consent of the voting public. I was not, am not and will never be a fan of term limits, but these term limits were the law, until King Mike decided it was time to change that. Yes the city council was also in on it, so they share a portion of the blame, but this election should not be about Mike Bloomberg, yet it is, because he decided the will of the people was wrong and got the city council to bend the rules especially for him.

That is wrong, and on the strength of that, and that alone, do I say no to Mike Bloomberg. I will be voting for Bill Thompson because the will of the people here has been subverted by the will of a multi-billionaire who wants to be King for a few more years.

As for the other races, I will be voting for John Liu for comptroller and Bill DeBlasio for public advocate. The little I know about these two men outweighs the nothing I know about their challengers, Joe Mendola(for comptroller) and Alex Zablocki(for public advocate).

The little I know about Liu and DeBlasio? Liu is a multi term member of the city council from Queens, and the first asian to serve on said council and has been endorsed by, among others, the firefighters union, teamsters and the UFT. Bill DeBlasio is a former regional director of HUD, but may be more well known, in political circles at least, as the former campaign manager for Hillary Clintons first senatorial campaign.

That’s about it, folks. Don’t forget to vote tomorrow, wherever you are. Have a good night.

Today’s Nuggets, by Alexis De Tocqueville, via wikiquote: The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

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As I flip between the Eagles – Redskins game, MSNBC programming, Battleplan on the military channel, and C-Span, with Rep. Louie Gohmert speaking, I find myself thinking on the upcoming World Series. My read on this is really pretty simple.

It’s gonna be a tight series.

There is strong pitching on both sides of this equation. There is strong hitting on both sides as well. Let’s start with pitching. Watch a Yankee viddy, showing nothing but walk off wins. I’m not a big fan of the music in the 1st half, but this isn’t about the music. The Yankee – Phillies highlight begins at the 2:26 mark.

Cliff Lee has been outstanding in these playoffs, giving up just 2 runs and 14 hits in 24.1 innings for 2 wins and 1 no-decision, and Pedro Martinez is well known to the Yankees and the Yankee faithful from his years in Boston. He is a tough and motivated pitcher… though it must be admitted that the Yankees seemed to get the better of him in the end most days, and he has seen better days. Cole Hamels has been the exception for the Phils, and has not been the same guy he was last year by any stretch of the imagination. His pitching in the postseason has been less than spectacular, 11 earned runs and 20 hits in 14.2 innings, and he has gone less than 7 innings in each of his last 5 starts , and hasn’t had a game where he has given up less than 2 runs since he faced the Nationals on September 17th.

C.C. Sabathia has been nearly as impressive as Lee, and has done much to push back against the thought that he wasn’t a big game pitcher, giving up 17 hits and 3 runs in 22.2 innings on his way to getting 3 wins, including a game 4 win in the alcs on 3 days rest. A.J. Burnett had, prior to his start in game 5, settled down after a somewhat shaky year. That game 5 start saw him come out shaky and give up 4 runs in the first, settle down, then give up a walk and a single in the 7th, then watch the bullpen crumble and let those baserunners in. 9 runs in 18 innings looks bad, but most in New York think that 1st inning was an anomaly. Andy Pettitte. What can you say? The man is clutch. The most post-season wins in baseball history, and he showed the Angels and the Twins how it’s done, posting a 2.37 postseason ERA this year, and shut down the Angels to win the American League Championship finale.

The Bullpen? There are only 2 words to say here. Mariano Rivera. Both bullpens have been serviceable with a few notable performances specifically from Phil Coke and David Robertson in limited work from the Yankee Bullpen and Chad Durbin and Scott Eyre from Philly. That said, Mariano however, is still Mariano. The Sandman has a career 1.69 era vs. the Phils, and has only given up one run in 10.2 innings during these playoffs. And that run came on a bloop single that ran just over the head of Robinson Cano.

Brad Lidge from the Phillies has done his best to put a disastrous year behind him, and so far has done that well, with 3 saves and no earned runs so far. But the problem with that statement is the last two words. So far. The question running through most Phillys fans minds at this point would probably be ” How long can Lidge keep this up?” The Phillys hope that he can, but doubts remain. We’ll see what happens when he faces the heart of the Yankees order.

Hitting is more problematic, for both teams. The Phillies have a gargantuan hitter in Ryan Howard, the Yankees have their answer in Alex Rodriguez. Both teams have guys who simply aren’t hitting, with Phillies Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez joining New Yorks Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher on the suck list. But there is one common denominator, despite the holes. There is a LOT of power in these lineups.

The Yankees were #1 in the league in Homers with 244, The Phillies were 4th with 224. The Yankees had 881 RBI’s, good for 1st overall, while the phillies were 4th with 788 RBI’s. There is, despite all the excellent pitching in this series, the potential for some EXPLOSIVE run scoring. If ever there was a world series that had the capacity to break the record for most runs scored, both in a series and in a single game, this is it.

The difference in this series may well be plate discipline. Here the Yankees have a commanding advantage. The Yankees as a team struck out only 1014 times this year, 4th fewest in baseball, while walking 663 times, which is the MLB’S best mark in that category. The Phillies cannot match the Yankees there.

But then again those numbers are regular season, so to be fair, we’ll also look at postseason numbers as well. Both teams have hit 14 home runs, The Phillies have 9 more RBI’s than the Yankees, but the Yankees are #2 in RBI’s for the postseason. Both teams are hitting equally well, They Yankees hitting .262 to the Phillies .261. Both teams struck out about the same amount, which is surprising, seeing the Yankees had Melky Cabrera and Nick Swisher striking out like they were paid to do exactly that. The Yankees struck out 68 times so far this post season, to the Phillies 63.

The Phillies also faced the Rockies In Coors field, and the Dodgers served up some gopher balls. The Yankees faced much tougher competition all the way through, even with the series sweep of the Twins.

I told you all of that to tell you this. I think all these things, while important, miss one thing. This is as much about heart as anything. And both of these teams have heart, but New York’s is stronger. Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte have been the heart and soul of this team for years and have each been among the best players this league has seen at their respective positions. Jimmy Rollins is good, Ryan Howard is good, Chase Utley is good. But this phillies team has nothing to match these 4.

Nothing. Yankees in 6.

A second viddy. This one from Keith Olbermann tonight. It has some politics in it, so for those of you allergic to that, disregard the first 80 seconds of it. The bit you baseball fans want to watch is the #1 best person in the world. It is a simple analysis of Ryan Howard, one well worth a second look and second thought. Viddy changed when i found the original was taken down. My apologies. Done on 11/9/09.

Today’s Nuggets, Via wikiquote: If you don’t have outstanding relief pitching, you might as well piss on the fire and call the dogs. Whitey Herzog

I walk into the clubhouse and it’s like walking into the Mayo Clinic. We have four doctors, three therapists and five trainers. Back when I broke in, we had one trainer who carried a bottle of rubbing alcohol and by the seventh inning he had drunk it all. Tommy Lasorda

God watches over drunks and third baseman. Leo Durocher

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard for all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting. George Orwell

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I don’t really think Rush is that big of a deal, and I think in the first 22 seconds of this interview Rush is absolutely correct. He is made to look

bigger and more important than he actually is by the words and inflammatory statements of his ideological enemies than he is simply on his own. He is a great entertainer, by all accounts, and a very outspoken man, and help given to him by drawing attention to him simply makes it possible that more people will espouse his views by increasing the amount of people who listen to him. His ideological enemies, by speaking about him, make him stronger. His ideological enemies here are being foolish.

I for one am not his ideological enemy, we are two men walking a wide path towards the same goal and the same future, a better America and a better world. We disagree about how to get to our destination, but regardless of our disagreements, we walk the road together. There is room enough for all on this road, I won’t begrudge the man if he thinks the path we travel isn’t the right one. Chastise and rebuke if he is abusive, reproach if he is wrong, but tolerate otherwise.

He does show a great deal of bombast, and maybe just a little rudeness with his interviewer, and to his critics, whom he calls “impotent and powerless” Now I can’t entirely agree with the man here, because his words would only be true if his opinion was the only one voiced. The act of rising up against a voice, an opinion, that you(or anyone) think is wrong is a powerful and empowering act. If one person doing it makes them more powerful, how much more so if millions do it, like the vast majority of Americans who know your show is on and do not listen? Pure Bombast from the Mr. Limbaugh, and the “Impotent” statement is true to what I have learned about the man, which is that he is always loud and usually wrong.

He talks of the statement of his, “I want Obama to Fail”. He wants the Presidents policies to fail, but he wants America to succeed, and if America follows President Obama’s policies it will begin to walk down the road to failure. Here’s a simple group of questions following a line of thought presented, I think, by Mr. Limbaugh. How can America succeed if the policies of its leaders fail? If Obama fails, does that not harm America? How does harming America help America succeed, either long or short term? How can you be sure that your vision of success is the right one? Your vision of success is the same one that Wall Street has, and that vision has cost us trillions of dollars and greatly damaged America’s financial infrastructure. Confidence in your vision does not mean it is the right vision for the rest of America.

He was most wrong in this video at the end of it, in his assessment of John McCain and what McCain was supposed to be able to do, as far as his supposed capacity to win the moderates and independents and be able to work with the Democrats. I followed that election process much closer than most I think, and I have to tell you that he was NOT that guy. The Maverick was only known for one piece of legislation that worked with a member of the other side of the aisle, McCain-Feingold. Besides that, the man was very much the party regular, never voting with the democrats, rarely working with them, and being loyal to his republican allies.

The ranks of independents swelled during the last 2 years of the Bush administration due to the Party’s inability to connect with America, Because of Katrina. Because of Iraq. Because of the damage done by economic crisis. No one thought that McCain was going to be able to bridge that gulf. No One with any brains in their heads anyway, especially after his statement that “The fundamentals of the economy were strong”.

Does he think we forget that quickly, or does he think that revisionism this soon after the election is acceptable?

I’ll give him this much, he’s entertaining. Wrong about a great many things, but entertaining.

Rockies lost. Oof. They could have extended to a game 5, but Huston Street couldn’t find the strike zone when he had to against Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, and ended up walking Utley and then had to groove one to Howard, and Howard almost took him out of the park and knocked in two runs, enough to give the Phillies the win and a spot in the NLCS.

One more real quick sports shot. Don’t look now hockey fans, but the New York Rangers are tied for first in the Atlantic Division. It’s early, but the team looks REAL good so far. We’ll see how things go as the season progresses. I see no reason to alter my NHL predictions just yet.

Today’s Nuggets, from Wikiquote: I do not know which makes a man more conservative — to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past. John Maynard Keynes

Revolutionary movements attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them. George Bernard Shaw

If the human intellect is allowed to impose a preconceived pattern on society, if our powers of reasoning are allowed to lay claim to a monopoly of creative effort… then we must not be surprised if society, as such, ceases to function as a creative force. Friedrich August von Hayek